Drying Peppers

These beautiful Hungarian Wax Peppers were allowed to ripen naturally on the plant in the fall. Here they've been placed on a round pizza pan and are going into a very low oven to dry. Our food dehydrator was completely full at this point with drying peppers, and we were loading the remaining peppers on cookie sheets and pizza pans to dry in the oven. This takes several hours (up to two days!) depending on the size of the pepper.

When the peppers are completely dry and crackle when you push on them, they're ready to either store or grind into the best Hungarian paprika you've ever had! We store ours in gallon size zip lock bags until we're ready to grind them.

Using a coffee mill or spice grinder, remove the stems and the seeds if you prefer a mild paprika. If you like more heat in your spices, add some or all of the seeds when grinding the pepper. That's the beauty of making your own....you get to choose exactly how hot you like it! After you've ground everything into a fine powder, store it in a canning jar with a tightly closed lid, in a cool, dark place. Don't store this on a shelf near your stove. The light and heat will negatively affect the quality of your stored spices.

The uses for this type of spice are endless. Keep in mind that these are pure spices without any added fillers, so go easy at first until you find out how much you should use when cooking with them. You will probably find that you use much less of this spice than you would spices purchased in the supermarket.

In addition to the Hungarian wax peppers, we dried both green and red jalapeno peppers, negro peppers, mulato peppers, and chimayo peppers. We spent one day grinding all of the dried peppers and storing them in glass jars. If you prefer a smokier flavor, you can put the peppers in a smoker before drying them. What a great way to extend the flavors of summer all through the winter months!